


A Bluer Sky

by Port



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, Gen, Homesickness, Post-Series, UST, sorta gen sorta het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/pseuds/Port
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She missed beauty the most. She had thought the people she had grown up with would pull her back to Broadchurch. Her colleagues at the station, who had treated her no differently than ever. Her sister, for shit’s sake, and her nephew. Surely homesickness was about the people you’d left behind?</p><p>But no. She mostly missed the coast and the godforsaken cliffs. That sky that fell into the sea at the horizon and glowed at sunset. The tide washing in and out like a lazy metronome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bluer Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amo_amare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amo_amare/gifts).



She missed beauty the most. She had thought the people she had grown up with would pull her back to Broadchurch. Her colleagues at the station, who had treated her no differently than ever. Her sister, for shit’s sake, and her nephew. Surely homesickness was about the people you’d left behind?

But no. She mostly missed the coast and the godforsaken cliffs. That sky that fell into the sea at the horizon and glowed at sunset. The tide washing in and out like a lazy metronome.

The suburban countryside had beauty, a pastoral sort of greenness and a bluer sky than the coast, like the scenery had been colored in by a small boxful of primary crayons. Even after a year-and-a-half, it seemed strange to her, though she supposed she might still grow used to it. Fred had not even started school yet, and she planned to be here at least until he graduated.

It was quite nice, she knew. A house with a refurbished garage to use as an office, so she could be close to her kids during the day. An investigations business where she could help people, and manage things side by side with Alec. Eventually she’d get to know more people in town, parents and colleagues, have a wider sense of belonging, but for now it was quite nice indeed.

“Quite nice,” she murmured, vaguely wishing she were on a walk along the shore rather than sitting on her porch listening to the birds waking up. She hadn’t turned on the porch light, could see stars fading where they weren’t blocked by tree limbs. She sipped her coffee and waited out the morning.

The coffee had cooled by the time her alarm sounded from the pocket of her dressing gown. She grabbed it and accidentally slid the bar for the snooze. An old habit from being in bed with Joe, wanting to linger with him before getting the kids off to school. After years of marriage, there hadn’t been ardor exactly, just skin brushing skin, comfort taken from closeness. She hadn’t needed comfort; she had had no problems, and neither, she’d imagined, had Joe. Had she sensed he did, though? Wanted to reassure him against an unease she had unconsciously detected? Stupid of her, if so.

Alec always told her firmly not to second-guess herself. He was right; that way led to madness, but even he knew it would be impossible to stop. Not for a long time, anyway. 

She adjusted her sweater, noticing the way she had folded her shoulders into herself and tucked her chin down. The nip in the air out here lacked the salty tang of the coast. Despite the scent of flowering trees down the walkway, invisible in the dark, the air tasted bland. 

Well, no time for the eight minutes allowed by the snooze. The kids needed up, she needed dressed. Alec would be about done with the shower.

Ellie poured the dregs of her coffee over the rail and opened the screen door. Tom was hard to wake these days, so she had drawn on increasingly creative ways to get him out of bed. Joe used to sing silly songs at him until Tom yelled and threw off his covers, pretty much ruling that out for Ellie now. Maybe she should make more coffee, bring him a cup. 

She turned the knob on the front door, but it didn’t turn all the way. “Oh, don’t tell me,” Ellie said. She rattled the door, but it was solidly locked, and the lights weren’t on in the kitchen and front room yet. “Bugger,” she swore, realizing she had left her keys inside. The self-locking door had seemed a good idea when they moved in. She and the kids were in the habit of leaving their house unlocked in Broadchurch, but she felt protective since then.

She could yell, but the bedrooms were in the back, and it was undignified besides. 

Since no one was around to hear, she kicked the door. Locked out of the very house she lived in. “Okay.” She dialed Alec, and he picked up in the middle of the second ring. 

“Ellie?”

“I’m locked out.”

“Of the house?”

“No, my bloody computer. Come let me in, it’s cold out here.”

As soon as the line clicked dead, Ellie realized she could have rung Tom, killed two birds with one phone call. Oh, well. The lights came on and the door opened to Alec, raised eyebrows and skinny chest bare over a pair of trousers. One corner of his mouth quirked up, though his eyes were customarily assessing. His hair was damp and the surgical scar over his heart was pink from the hot water.

“Thank you,” she said, and walked inside.

Alec took her mug from her hand, where she had forgotten it, and went into the kitchen. Despite needing to get the kids up, she followed him, then remembered her idea. “I might give Tom some coffee to get him up today.”

Alec laughed from the sink. “That could be the thing that works.” He looked at the pot, which had enough for one more cup, and back at her. “Go ahead, I’ll make some more.”

She mixed three big spoonfuls of sugar and added generous cream to Tom’s coffee. He took his tea sweet, was used to sugary drinks. Alec smirked and shook his head when he glanced over from scooping grounds into the filter. “That’ll wake him up.”

“The point,” she replied, and carried the cup upstairs. “Time for school,” she called before knocking on Tom’s open door. “Look what I’ve got.”

Tom was a bundle of blankets and pillows on the child-sized bed. He shifted underneath them and didn’t answer.

“Come on, Tom. Your coffee’ll get cold.”

“What?”

“You’re twelve now, I suppose it’s time you got a healthy addiction. Come on.”

Tom’s face was creased from the sheets and eyes suspiciously red when he emerged from the blankets. Ellie’s impulse was to sit and hold him close, but he had grown tired of her overt comfort, cagey with affection. She wondered if he were modeling himself after Alec, which would be somehow okay, or if it were all on Joe’s fuckery.

“Here.” She held out the coffee, arm straight and mug close to Tom’s face, not giving him a choice. He took it.

“Oh, it’s too sweet,” Tom said, screwing up his face. “Dad always made it bitter.”

“Dad made you coffee?”

Tom cut his eyes away, as if this were a guilty secret. 

“Well, that’s okay,” Ellie said, and couldn’t help but grip his shoulder, give it a squeeze. He accepted it stiffly, then handed her back the cup.

Back in the kitchen, Ellie poured the coffee down the sink. “Back to the drawing board,” she told Alec.

“Maybe a blowhorn,” he said. He was stirring oatmeal over a burner, and it looked runny. Well. Not like she was a better cook. Joe had always had that job.

“Are you going to put on a shirt?”

“I was interrupted in the middle of dressing.”

She opened her mouth to retort but her alarm interrupted her. Eight minutes had quickly gone by. She thumbed the button to cancel it and started setting the table. At the counter, Alec put slices of bread into the toaster and yawned hugely. Ellie resisted the urge to give one of his bare shoulders a commiserating pat. 

Instead, she asked a few questions about the case they had closed last night, which turned into a briefing on the ongoing case of cyber stalking they’d return to today. Bowls of oatmeal set out on the table, Ellie went back upstairs, saw that Tom was dressed and pulling on his trainers, and went to wake the baby in her own bedroom. She found him balancing on his feet on her bed, and as soon as she came in he smiled and held out his arms.

“What would I do without you, Fred?” she asked.

The rule was everyone ate breakfast together, hence the early rising. It had taken time for Tom to grow accustomed and agree to it; their morning routine in Broadchurch had been rushed, everyone passing by each other in the kitchen and hall, Joe holding the baby against one shoulder and helping make sure no one left anything behind. But Ellie insisted. They had not left Broadchurch to fall into old habits. Somewhere back there, she had lost track of her family.

When Alec had finally agreed to move in, he had hung back from breakfast, busied himself with washing up and dressing until one morning Ellie threw open the door to his room and said, “Tom’s got to go to school in fifteen minutes. We can’t wait to eat forever.”

Alec had been one-and-a-half legs into his trousers and fallen to the floor in his haste to pull them up. “Jesus, Ellie!”

She rolled her eyes and closed the door before her face could light up in a blush. The door opened behind her, and Alec came out, bedraggled and buttoning up his shirt. He opened his mouth, then thought better of it and went downstairs, wearing an air of resignation and determination. You’d think he was off to do battle rather than have a bit of toast and orange juice with her and her kids.

Later that same day, when Tom was at school and Fred with the babysitter in the house, Ellie and Alec had taken a break from work to eat apples and grapes at their desks. He had been eying her warily all morning, to the point where Ellie felt guilty for what she had done, and a little silly too. 

“Sorry, about before.” She frowned into her plate of apple slices.

“We’re just lucky I’ve had my surgery already,” Alec said. “That could have been it for me.”

Ellie was accustomed to his black humor and paid it no mind. “You don’t have to eat with us, of course, but you’re not just some boarder, renting a room. You don’t have to keep away.”

“It seems important to you, having the time with the kids in the morning.”

“It is. Doesn’t mean I want them all to myself.” 

Alec stopped mid-chew, and Ellie imagined slapping herself silly. Exactly what was she trying to get across to this man? They’d been here three months, him living with her family for two. They worked together all day, retired to the house together in the evenings. Quite often—too often?— after Tom and Fred were asleep, she and Alec sat a polite distance away from each other on the couch, and he let her talk and talk. He listened with seriousness and concern even when she repeated herself, unable to stop obsessing over what she had missed, what the hell was wrong with Joe, what she could do to make it up to Tom. 

“There’s nothing to make up for,” Alec always said. “You’re a good mother. I see you with the kids.”

“But I let this happen.”

“You know that’s not true.”

In the office, Ellie had looked up from her plate. “We live together; we don’t have to be stupid about it.”

Alec had nodded, still looking confused, but afterward always attended breakfast and dinner with the family. After a while, he even stopped being awkward about it.

Today, almost a year later, they sat at the kitchen table. Tom was helping Fred lever mashed banana to his mouth with one hand, and spooning drippy porridge into his own with the other. She wondered if her son was ambidextrous. Across from her, Alec had finally put on a dress shirt. He too was watching Tom and Fred out of the corner of his eye. Then he noticed her looking and grinned. He did that more, lately, since their conversations on the couch had become—though no less personal—more conversational.

She smiled back at him and took a last bite of her toast. When she looked back up, Tom was staring at her. “What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He didn’t look unhappy, so she let it go. Alec seemed lost in thought, contemplating his plate.

“Your cardiologist appointment is at eight, right?” she asked Alec. Just a check-up, thankfully. “Ride into town with us and I’ll keep you company.” She had started going with him to appointments after noticing a sort of bleakness in his demeanor when he left for them and came back. Having someone there seemed to help, so she had started inviting herself along. Alec had never refused.

After the usual last-minute retrieval of books and homework, toddler toys, and coats, they finally all got into the car. The sun had risen, revealing the un-coastal palette of primary colors Ellie had noted before. 

Soon they arrived at Tom’s school. “Bye, Mum,” he said, climbing out to the sidewalk. “Bye, Alec.” Alec gave a nod and a wave, and Tom smiled as he turned and walked toward a group of other boys. Not for the first time, Ellie wondered what she had gotten them all into.

“You seem pensive today,” Alec remarked as she pulled back into traffic. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Some. It’s getting better.”

“Good thing you had your phone.” He was smirking now.

“Oh, shut it. We’ve all been locked out of that house at one point.”

“Everybody but me. What is it?”

“’That house,’” Ellie murmured. “Do you suppose I’ll ever call it anything but ‘the house’ or ‘that house?’”

Alec thought this over until they came to a stoplight. “You might call it ‘our home.’”

She turned to face him, found him half-turned toward her in the passenger seat. “I might,” she breathed. “That would be okay with you?”

One corner of his mouth ticked up. He might have looked sad, except for that private smile. “We live together; we don’t have to be stupid about it.”

“I suppose not,” she said, wonderingly, then started when a car horn beeped behind them. Green light, yes. 

A quiet settled between them as Ellie watched the road and kept an eye out for landmarks she would almost call familiar after more than a year of navigating this town—their new home.“You know, I keep comparing this place to Broadchurch,” she said.

“Well, Broadchurch was beautiful,” Alec replied. “The countryside is too, I suppose, but it lacks a certain drama.”

“That’s it exactly.”

She had family and friends there still, but it was coming together in her mind, day by day, a bit faster today, why the sea was the only thing she really missed.


End file.
